So Live
by My Dark Rosaline
Summary: Cloud seeks peace within the church in Midgar’s slums. Set just before Advent Children. Angst and slash content. S/C pairing.


**Title:** "So Live."

**Author:** mydarkrosaline

**Word Count**: 1,800

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Angst, blood.

**Pairing:** Sephiroth/Cloud.

**Characters:** Cloud, Aerith, Zack, Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** Final Fantasy VII and all related titles do not belong to me. They belong to Squaresoft and are their property. No profit is being made from this.

**Summary:** Cloud seeks peace within the church in Midgar's slums. Set just before Advent Children.

**Author's Notes:** I apologise if this comes out oddly; I haven't written anything serious for a long while now. Unbeta'd, so if you point out any problems, please let me know. Constructive Criticism welcomed and desired.

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The church in Midgar's slums was still a stronghold of purity and calm in the otherwise blasted city. It was one of the few places where one could come to think, to listen, or simply just to be. Shafts of gentle sunlight filtered through the holes in the rooftop, catching the dust motes and letting them flare like diamonds in the air, sweetened with the scent of the flowers.

Cloud still found it tranquil here. This place, nowhere else, was the only one he could come to and find some form of peace. Despite the fact that she was gone, despite the fact that he had let her die, despite everything, the memories that this one sacred area brought kept him from complete misery.

Sitting beside the flowers, Cloud looked into them. The space where he had crushed them had vanished in the two years since it happened, erasing the mishap and healing over it.

Silence pressed down in the church, numbing thought and feeling. Cloud allowed himself to relax, something he never did – could never do – anywhere else. The sweet air filled his lungs, the light warming his skin. He closed his eyes and drank in the feeling of simply _being_. No thoughts, no pain, no worries, simply here and now and gentle.

A soft scuffing noise penetrated the silence. Cloud opened his eyes and turned, looking towards the doors to the church. No one was there, and the doors remained firmly closed.

The sun slipped behind the clouds in the now-visible sky of Midgar, and Cloud turned back to the flowers in the temporary gloom. As he did so, something caught his eye – a flash of pink against the grey-green stone.

His heart hammered in his chest as he allowed his eyes to travel back to it, and his breath caught when Aerith stepped out of one of the darker corners, a small, sweet and gentle smile touching her lips.

"Hello, Cloud," she said, and giggled when his mouth fell open. He sought for words, floundering, wondering if this were a dream, unsure how to think and feel. His stomach tightened even as a rush of warmth blossomed in his heart. She was with him. He had let her die, but there she stood, bright and colourful and so very definitely _real_. Thoughts raced through his head: did she blame him? Did she hate him?

Her hands were clasped behind her back, and with a few echoing steps, she had crossed over to kneel beside him. Her eyes were bright and green, and they shone as they always had. Aerith had never been subjected to the mako of SOLDIER, and yet her eyes glowed as if they had. Cloud would have smiled, if he could. He didn't understand what was happening.

"You're not happy, are you, Cloud?" She asked, looking down into the flowers. He didn't respond. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. His lips opened, as if he were about to speak, but then he swallowed and closed them, looking down to where the cracked floor faded into the earth. The bright green stems were in his line of vision, and he couldn't help but notice how startlingly like Aerith's they were. A small part of him wondered if the woman was actually there, or if he had simply taken the things that reminded him of her and built her up in his head.

It wouldn't, after all, be the first time that his mind had betrayed him.

But he could feel Aerith's body so close to his, not touching but definitely there, and he could hear her breathing in the still, sweet air.

"Cloud…"

A lump caught in his throat, and for a moment the dirt and the stone swam in his vision. He didn't blink, and he didn't let the tears fall. So many words were caught in him. Things he wanted to tell her. Things he wanted to beg of her. Aerith was right there, beside him, beautiful and calming and _there_. He needed her there, he realised, he knew. He needed to know if she forgave him.

He looked up, and saw her head fall back and her body arch, as though she was pulled back by the shoulders. In mute horror, he watched as a circle of red grew against the pink of her dress. Her eyes were wide and glassy, the green of the leaves fading, the glow vanishing, replaced by dullness and sapped into grey. Her hair unwound from its braid, it too slowly fading to grey, vanishing from his sight and blending into the suddenly cold grey of the church walls.

With a cry, he reached out, trying to grab her, but his hand passed straight through her, and when he brought it back, a glistening red liquid covered his glove.

"Hey, Cloud."

Choking back a sob, Cloud didn't even hear the voice. He didn't hear the person approaching until his chin was gripped, firmly but gently, and his face lifted to look into Zack's.

"What're you worrying for, Spike?" The SOLDIER 1st grinned, shaking his head to flick that one, errant spike of fringe from his eyes. Cloud's cheeks were wet with tears, and he saw Zack's happy face crease into a frown.

"Cloud?" He said, reaching for his shoulders, "You okay, buddy?" His frown melted, and a warm smile touched his lips again. "Hey, don't worry. We're friends, right? I'm gonna look after you." His smile was no less cheery, but Cloud saw the trail of blood leak slowly from Zack's hairline and trickle into his eyes. The grin faded into a small smile, a peaceful smile, and Zack's voice was barely a shape in the air before he too began to fade into grey.

"Continue living, yeah Cloud?"

Zack's hands were as insubstantial as the rest of him, and when Cloud could not longer feel them on his shoulders, he slumped, wanting to wake up from this nightmare.

An entirely different hand curved around his jaw and cupped his face.

"Good to see you, Cloud."

Eyes wide, Cloud sucked in a breath sharply. The leather was warm against his skin, and the smile he couldn't help but see was audible in the silken steel of the voice that spoke.

"You're not happy at all, are you, Cloud?"

He looked up into green eyes that burned and smouldered with a calm, restrained poison. Silver hair brushed against Cloud's face and neck, and Sephiroth's breath whispered across his skin.

"No… you're not happy at all."

Cloud felt his lips twitch, pull into a snarl. He opened them, but Sephiroth's leather-covered thumb brushed over them suddenly and pressed down, earning Cloud a soft chuckle from the other man, who gazed down at him fondly, as one would a pet. Or, perhaps, as one would a toy.

"What do you want?" Cloud hissed, his voice catching. The blood of Aerith and Zack was still fresh in his mind, and wet on his glove. His fingers slipped when he balled that hand into a fist.

"What do I want, Cloud?"

Sephiroth chuckled again, his smile stretching. His other hand reached for Cloud's and he held it at the wrist, his thumb stroking the wetness that Aerith's blood had left. Cloud felt the leather against his bare skin again, and felt the fingers tighten, ever-so-slightly. Sephiroth could snap his wrist like this, Cloud knew. Sephiroth could snap his neck. And yet he made no movement against it, the only defiance he gave him was the glare that bored into Sephiroth's eyes, blue into green.

And Sephiroth smiled, all boundless munificence and indulgence.

"You called me here, puppet."

Sephiroth's lips covered his own, swallowing the growl of disagreement. Cloud's eyes widened again, and Sephiroth pulled him further into him, sliding his hand up and along Cloud's arm, fingers tracing the defined muscle.

"You call to me, Cloud," he whispered, "You need and want and burn for me, just like a moth to the candle-flame."

"I'm not –"

"Yes you are," Sephiroth purred, fingers tightening on Cloud's upper arm, smearing Aerith's blood over the flesh. "Mother lives within you, Cloud, however you try to deny her. Mother wants you, Cloud, and you want her." Another smile stretched Sephiroth's lips, "And those who want Mother are drawn, inexorably, ultimately, to me. They want and need and desire where I see fit."

Cloud's lips twitched again, but Sephiroth's covered them once more. His lips were firm, demanding, dominating. Cloud, not understanding why, not really _knowing_ why, opened his mouth, allowing Sephiroth access.

When they broke apart, Sephiroth's mouth hovered but inches from his own, breath sweet and warm on Cloud's face.

"You were never truly a brother, Cloud," Sephiroth whispered, gently, "But you are mine nonetheless." His lips pressed against his once more, and the hand around his arm, wet still with Aerith's blood, gripped him tightly, painfully.

"Zack wanted you to live," Sephiroth grinned, eyes green and poisonous and oh-so-_knowing_, "So live," he whispered.

With a sigh of the breeze, Sephiroth was gone. The clouds that obscured the sun parted, and pale light filtered into the church once more. The flowers continued to fragrance the air, and all seemed so similar and so strange that Cloud wondered if he had, perhaps, simply fallen asleep.

A sharp pain ripped at his arm, causing him to give a cry and clutch it with his other hand.

What seemed like a dark bruise stood out plainly and starkly against the pale white of his skin. But a bruise was colourful, purples fading into greens fading into yellows – a bruise was living, natural and, in its own way, a bruise was wholesome. This mark was black, no other colours mixed or faded in. This mark did not belong to Cloud – belonged to some small part that lived within Cloud, true, but not to him.

Something almost like a laugh bubbled in Cloud's chest, but it was caught in his throat, and all he could let out was a juddering sigh of air.

_So live._

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The sunlight filtered down into the church, and the flowers sweetened the air. Little motes of dust floated in the breeze and flared like miniature supernovas in the light before vanishing from sight once more.

Cloud sat down beside the flowers, Fenrir parked outside, box of materia at his feet. A blanket lay stretched out behind him, and a long, blackened bandage lay discarded beside that. The blond man paid no note to anything as he wound a new one over the oozing mark of geostigma on his white skin.

Despite the agony that wracked Cloud's body, despite the vision of beloved friends hurting, despite everything, the memories that this one sacred area brought kept him from complete misery.

And so he lived there.

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End file.
